Interview with
Director/Actor Marc Wasserman of "The Commute"
"The film follows the COMMUTER, as he embarks on his daily drive
from Orange County to Downtown Los Angeles. During the commute,
he fields phone calls from his office, deals with clients and
the pains and aggravations of the most horrific traffic on the
West Coast. A satirical look at coping with the ever growing
problem of too many cars and not enough road. During his drive,
the Commuter finds time to worry, relax and contemplate his life
while extending various philosophical views. COMMUTE is
scheduled to premiere at the Action on International Film
Festival in Long Beach, California, July 27-29, 2007 COMMUTE -
Starring Marc Wasserman as The Commuter featuring NICOLE ORING
as Doris Dae with CJ BAKER as Mr. Sindon and introducing CHRIS
COSGROVE as The Guy in the Sky"
TONY: For those who
might not be familiar with you, tell us about yourself.
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MARC: I'm a filmmaker
by day and night. I'm also an attorney during the day. I've
been practicing law for eleven years now. I actually went into
law to make money to start my own production company with a good
friend of mine. I had been acting and involved in theater since
I was seven-years-old. I did a lot of summer stock and musical
theater. I pounded the pavement in Hollywood and did my share
of commercials and public service announcements. I also did
B-movies, cable movies, and a few mainstream movies here and
there. I did a lot of theater as well. I also worked on a
couple of pilots that didn't go anywhere. Eventually, I started
writing a lot. I decided I wanted to produce my own stuff. I
have two older brothers as well. One is a doctor and one is a
lawyer. I didn't go to school long enough to become a doctor
because I hated school so much. When my brother became a
lawyer, I thought I could do it as well. If he could do it, I
could do it. There's my avenue to make some money and go into
production. |
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TONY: How did the
inspiration for your film come about?
MARC: As an attorney in
California, you get hired by all different kinds of clients. It
requires me to travel all over the place. Before I went to law
school, I was commuting from the Orange County area to
Hollywood. I did that for about ten years. For the last twenty
years, I've been driving up and down all these different
freeways in Southern California. In the last five or six years,
it's gotten so bad that you can't go ten miles without it taking
you almost an hour or so. It's heavy drive time. About six
years ago, I started what I thought was going to be a short
one-man play with a guy who's sitting behind the wheel. As I
started writing, it took on a life of its own. I decided that
there's enough people who have to deal with this sort of thing.
As the years rolled on, the traffic was just getting worse. It
wasn't hard to draw inspiration from all the frustration that I
would feel on a daily basis. You would be stuck in a car for
five or six hours.
TONY: What is it about
human drama that inspires your writing?
MARC: I draw from my
own experiences. I'm a writer from the school of "write what
you know and write what you've lived." I've certainly been all
about going out and living, so I can draw on these experiences
to write about. These mundane things that make up the human
experience. The topics that people may want to shy away from.
Topics like death and dealing with impending death. To me, it
really jumps out and screams for attention. People will think
about it. Things like dealing with traffic and the problems
that are all around us. You have people road raging and all of
the violence that surrounds us. All of this occurs while we are
driving. It's because of the frustrations that we're dealing
with in traffic. I think that needs to be exploited and talked
about. It allows us to deal with it as a whole. You need to
just listen to your radio or do something else. You can't get
mad at what you can't control.
TONY: How do you
balance your real life and your dreams?
MARC: That's a good
question. Honestly, I don't know. It's about focusing on what
you want to do, what you have to do, and what you can do. You
try to give all of them equal time. You always do what you have
to do. You do what you want to do when you can. You also do
what you can do when you can. It's about finding the right time
to do things. For me, it's all about preparation. I prepare at
least two years in advance before I do a film. I have to clear
things on my schedule from work and my family life. I have to
make sure that I have the time to go and shoot a film. I don't
have the luxury of taking two or three months to shoot a film.
I'm also not the kind of filmmaker who likes to shoot one
weekend here and one weekend there. I'll work for a year and a
half to rearrange my schedule. I can shut down my office for
four days to focus on shooting my film. I think the key is
preparation. You have to know exactly what you want to do.
When it comes to following my dreams of wanting to make a film,
it doesn't become that difficult once I know I've laid the
groundwork and mapped it all out.
TONY: What about
the art of filmmaking do you enjoy?
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MARC:
I was always drawn to the live audience reaction
when I was doing plays. When I started getting
into film, I realized there's more you can do with
film. You can go more in-depth and show more
of a character. You can tell more of a story.
I don't necessarily care if somebody likes my film
one way or the other. I just want people to
react. I love getting a reaction out of
people. Whether it's sad, happy, or angry.
I don't care if somebody says they hated my film.
It's still a reaction that I got out of them.
If I can move somebody from one place to another
emotionally, I get some satisfaction out of it.
I took somebody away from their reality and brought
them to another place. We all have to get away
from our realities once in a while. |
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TONY: How did you
balance all of your tasks on set?
MARC: I had a great
director of photography. He knew what my vision was. If I was
in front of the camera, I trusted him. I knew he would get the
shots that I wanted. It's truly a movie that was made as a
collaborative effort. With that kind of support, it makes it a
lot easier. There were different times on set when I would feel
overwhelmed. When you have people around you that are very good
at acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses, that really
helps. That's why you fill that area with people who know
exactly what they're doing. We would have anywhere from two to
four crew members on set. We could only get so many people into
one car.
TONY: How can people
see your film?
MARC: We've got our
website up on my-space, which is
Myspace.com/thecommuteison.
We also have another website that is ready to be launched in
about three weeks. It's
www.thecommuteison.com.
We are listed on IMDB as well. As part of our promo, we're
doing a daily commuter's video log on our my-space. It's really
just a few clips of what goes on in the car on a daily basis. I
commute every single day. I drive about a hundred miles a day.
I'm using that as promotional material for when we get ready to
put the movie out there. We are expecting to be done around
July with the final cut. The DVD will also be available. We're
going to take it to a variety of film festivals. We're going to
roll the dice and see what happens.
TONY: What did you
learn from shooting "Terminal?"
MARC: I've learned to
get a good director of photography. One who's not going to fall
asleep while holding the camera. That's a completely different
story. (laughs) You really need to be careful about who you
hire as crew and who you're working with. It's very important
on an Independent film. You really don't have a lot of money to
put out there. You're looking for people who are going to work
for little or no pay. You want to find people who believe in
the project. Before I hired anyone for this film, I had them
read the script and explained to them the difficulties that are
involved. I told them we're in an uphill battle. If you don't
believe in the story, that's fine. We'll just go our separate
ways. I was fortunate enough to find people who genuinely
believed in the script and the story. They put in the long
hours when necessary to get it all done. For an Independent
film, that's the most important thing. You need to make sure
that the cast and crew is on board with the main vision of what
you're trying to do. You need to make sure that they'll be with
you for all the pitfalls that you're going to have to deal with.
TONY: How hard was it
to get "Terminal" made?
MARC: "Terminal" was an
eight to ten year labor of love. I started writing it back in
1995. It was based on my own experiences of dealing with a
disease called meningitis. I almost died from that. Once I had
written it, I hit up all my relatives and friends for money. I
raised about 20,000 bucks from a variety of different people. I
would get 20 bucks here and there. I sold off small percentages
of any profit that might be released in the future. If anything
ever happens with "Terminal," I'm not going to get any money
from it. I've sold off most of the rights to the profits. I
just wanted to get it made. I pulled money out of my house as
well. I also have ten or fifteen credit cards that continue to
be maxed out.
TONY: Why should people
see your film?
MARC: For anybody who
gets into a car, they need to see this movie. They can get a
better understanding of what it's like to have to really sit in
a car on a long commute. There are things you can do that can
be productive. There's plenty of phone calls that you can
make. You can do other things besides getting angry and
frustrated. You can listen to the radio. You can spend some
peaceful moments with yourself. If you're religious, you can
spend your time talking to god or whoever you believe in. The
film really shows you what commuters have to deal with on a
daily basis.
TONY: Here's a fun
question from you: From talking to you, I know you're a big
Lakers fan. How long have you been a Lakers fan for?
MARC: It started in
1979 when Magic Johnson came into the league. I was just
starting to play basketball. He was just so electric and
magnetic. He brought that team together. From watching him play
and watching his will to win, it grabbed my attention. From
that point on, I was a Lakers fan. That mentality really
inspired me. I translated that into my own life to some degree.
A lot of my friends have asked me how I balance everything.
They asked me the same question that you asked me earlier. It's
that drive and will to win. I think it all goes hand in hand.
I'm forever a Lakers fan. L.A. is used to winning. When you
win five championships in nine years, you're not used to being
eliminated in the first round. It's like being sick when they
go down and lose like this.
TONY: What are your
plans for the future?
MARC: My plans for the
future are to become a full-time filmmaker. I plan to get rid
of this law practice that I have. I plan on raising my kid. It
might become "kids" as I think my wife wants to have another
kid. That's really what I'd like to do. I want to be with my
family and make my films. I'd be very happy if that's the work
I'm able to do full-time. Those are my plans. That's what I
hope to be doing in the not-so-distant future.
